Wounded Healers

So, I guess it might be one of those "back to square one" moments.

Let me explain myself. I know this may seem rather annoying, but I just realized that, in so many words, something I'd thought I'd gotten over I actually haven't. It just came back with a new face. The name of this nasty "thing"? Listening to the Mirror.

Once upon a time the evil Queen asked her Mirror who was the fairest in all the land. Ever since that day, we humans have looked to mirrors, both real and metaphysical, to define us. Not that I'm bashing real mirrors. I rather like the real ones, because they're nice enough to tell me whether I look nice or like a slob, or when I have a pimple that looks like a third eye protruding from the middle of my forehead. What I hate are the metaphysical ones. Because the fact is the old saying, "Mirrors never lie" is false in and of itself.

Now, I guess in reality, I'm not talking about mirrors but about Satan. I'm talking about how he just loves to make me look at a warped view of myself, a destructive window to my soul, and then try to take away every single shred of joy or happiness I could try to have. He makes me focus on my failures to the point where I'm completely blinded to anything but them. And I begin to despair because of those failures. I guess I'm kind of good at that. In fact, from what my friends keep telling me, I tend to focus on everything I do wrong a lot. But, because I am me, a recovering perfectionist and a rather hurt soul, I see what I do wrong a lot more than I see what I do right.

And for me, because I know I struggle with pride, it feels a lot safer to focus on everything about me that I hate, that I don't like or that I do wrong than what I like about myself and what I do right. I know that it seems rather stupid, but it makes sense in my mind. Plus, after years upon years of doing it, it's become a habit.

And of course other thoughts revolve in my head about this, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to read them. Knowing and commiserating with my struggle is one thing. Hearing about it constantly, without any hope of resolution, of any healing or end? Well, who'd want to read about that?

Ironically, I was taught a truth about myself from the most unlikely place: Grumpy the dwarf. In the show Once Upon A Time, he says to Snow White that pain is important. Rather than take anything that could make him forget, he'd rather hold on to the pain. It made him who he was, became a part of his character. it made him Grumpy.

Now, I'm not saying being a grumpy person is a good thing! Been there, done that, looking for a lighter so I can burn the T-shirt. But the fact is that we "walking wounded," as Henri Nouwen might put it, are wounded healers. We know pain, we know hurt, and because of that we know how to help others with the pain. We know the pain. We know the deep, deep hurt. We wounded healers know the how deep the depths of despair can be. We know the feelings of hopelessness, so we know how to give hope. We see where people are, and we can show them the light by which we see so they can leave the pits, the valleys of Death's enormous shadows.

Now that may seem like wishful thinking on my part, but I know this to be true. Not that I have helped others, but because I have been helped by others. Others who have gone through the same things. And others who have found ways out of the pain of failure. People who have found victory.

These people have led me to Christ. He, who is the Ultimate Wounded Healer, knows the pain of despair. He knows what it feels like to lose hope. He knows abandonment. But He also knows how to heal those hurts. And it's to Him I point you all. It's Him that I praise, though sometimes my voice falls silent. But even in silence, hope and love are found.

Holy is the Lord, and most worthy of praise.

The Loser's Circle

Greetings, Readers!

Since I last posted, I decided to take a small sabbatical from blog writing. However I also decided not to tell anyone. I am dreadfully sorry, and ask you to please forgive my lack of professionalism.

Actually, that's not true, unless it was a subconscious decision. But it sounds better to say, "I took a much-needed break" than to admit I have been running around like a chicken with it's head forcibly removed by sharp instruments ever since I posted last year in December, and have only just now had enough time, energy, and usable material to create a new blog post.

Okay, now I got that over with, I'm going to quit using such a formal voice. It was fun, but what I have to say can't be said with a stiff upper lip, pretending to look down my nose at readers. Or as though I'm a British professor. Something along those lines.

First off, I'll try to explain the title. These days I feel very much like a loser. No, this is not some cheesy gag trying to extol the virtues of being "a Loser for Christ" and giving up one's life to follow him. If I ever do that, I sincerely hope one of my dear friends will be kind enough to walk up behind me and hit me upside the head (aka, Gibbs slap me). Honestly I do feel like a loser, literally. I lose a lot. Not just in sports. Though in that area, I feel almost cursed as, inexorably, whenever I play or watch a sporting event, the team I cheer or play for loses. Every time.

This January has brought that into sharp focus as I play Volleyball and struggle because I feel as though my presence simply brings down the team, that they would be better off if I didn't play. More than once I have lost my temper because, after two weeks of playing, my team has won only a single game, and the other team was sadly pathetic. So I'm not sure I should even count that as a victory. But every other game we always lose, and I feel terrible about it, wondering if I might have been able to prevent it just by not showing up.

But it seems to show up elsewhere too. I feel often not good enough because I find that I fail to achieve any goals which include winning something important. Scholarships? Can't seem to get any. Writing contests? Never good enough. And if you combine the two? Failure after failure after failure rises before my eyes, and makes me want to curl into a hopeless little ball. And it never helps when I see someone else I know win them because it's always a bittersweet experience. I'm happy for them, but I feel jealous inside, wishing I was as good as they.

I never feel as though I measure up, to myself, or anyone else.Other people (aka, my parents) say they see potential in me, but sometimes I wonder of they even know what that means. When you face so many other writers and excellent professionals and student in your field, when you always seem to fall short, I wonder if they know what they're talking about because they clearly cannot mean me. They haven't met the people who clearly have potential, because if they had, they would never mistake me as having it.

But, thankfully I have friends. Friends who tell me that there is something more, that there is a reason. Because of them I have hope again. I have to believe that God somehow has some purpose for me, that being in the "loser's circle" has some significance, some meaning some value! There has to be more than just constantly being cursed to lose. There has to be some sort of purpose, something going on that will give this, give me, a reason to continue. I need and want hope.

And please, DO NOT leave comments, email or Facebook message me, or anything just to tell me "You're not a loser, Nathan!" (Think I put enough emphasis on "Don't"?) In all honesty, I don't want to hear that. It doesn't actually make a dent, no offense. And don't recite Jeremiah 29:11 at me. That verse has become so clichéd that it actually sickens me to hear it. It loses more of it's meaning every time someone tells me to read it or look it up. That's not my purpose in writing. I'm not looking to get a bunch of sympathy cards. I want to try to maybe encourage you, even though sometimes I wish i could do the same for myself.


God has a purpose for me. Sometimes I doubt it. In my darkest moments, I give in to feeling like an accident without meaning. But that is not a way to live. That is a way to die. I believe that God has a purpose because sometimes I have to in order to just keep breathing, to fight the waves of depression I face. It is the rpoe to which I cling, and sometimes from which I receive burn marks when the trials of life cause it to start slipping through my hands. But it's still there. I believe it.


Sometimes, that's all we have. Knowledge stops, but belief can be eternal. Belief is powerful. Belief acts when nothing else can, when reason fails and discernment falters. Belief gives life to the dead and dying heart.


If I, the modern chief of losers (at least in my opinion), can believe that God has a purpose for me, then you, my dear, dear reader, can know that God does have a plan for you. That He will accomplish his purpose for you, though it might be obscure right now. His plan will be brought to light, into glorious light, and you will see the beautiful plan He created for you all along. A plan that will glorify Him, even in your failures.


Holy is the Lord, and worthy of praise.